The twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24, killing more than 1,700 people and leaving entire neighborhoods in ruins, have become more than a natural disaster. They have exposed the deep structural failures of the Venezuelan state — failures that have been decades in the making and that no political rebranding can conceal.
As survivors dug through rubble with their bare hands, shovels, and ropes in the crucial first 72 hours, the absence of a functioning state became impossible to ignore. Heavy machinery arrived late. Search-and-rescue teams were insufficient. Medical personnel and volunteers reportedly faced bureaucratic obstacles, including roadblocks and permit demands. In some areas, security forces were accused not of protecting civilians, but of looting abandoned homes.
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This is not simply the story of an earthquake. It is the story of institutional collapse. For over two decades, Venezuela has endured successive political, economic, and humanitarian crises that hollowed out its state capacity. Corruption, politicization of the armed forces, and the systematic weakening of independent institutions left the country dangerously unprepared for a catastrophe of this magnitude. The result is visible today with a government unable to effectively respond to a national emergency and a population increasingly forced to rely on itself for survival.
The political implications are equally significant. Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez now faces the most serious test of her leadership since assuming power after former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s capture. Before the earthquake, her approval ratings were already weakening amid economic stagnation and public skepticism over promises of reform. Now, public anger in the disaster zones has intensified. Videos emerging from the hardest-hit areas show frustration, despair, and fury directed at state authorities.
This crisis also arrives at a delicate political moment. Venezuela’s democratic opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, had been pressing for new elections after substantial evidence suggested the ruling establishment had manipulated the 2024 presidential vote. The disaster has now shifted national attention away from political transition and toward emergency survival and reconstruction.
History shows that natural disasters can reshape political trajectories across Latin America. The 1985 Mexico City earthquake severely weakened the legitimacy of the long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party and energized civil society. In Venezuela itself, the 1999 Vargas disaster became a pivotal moment for Hugo Chavez, who used the catastrophe to strengthen his argument for revolutionary state transformation.
The question now is which historical path Venezuela will follow. Disasters can weaken governments, but they can also provide opportunities for leaders to consolidate power. Rodriguez may use the state of emergency to delay democratic transition, centralize decision-making, and justify heightened security measures. Under the banner of stability and reconstruction, political dissent could face even harsher repression.
That possibility should concern Washington. The administration of President Donald Trump has openly invested political capital in Rodriguez, portraying her as a pragmatic and more functional partner capable of stabilizing Venezuela after Maduro. But the earthquakes have laid bare how little the machinery of the state has changed. The same institutional weaknesses, corruption networks, and governance failures remain deeply embedded.
This makes the current U.S. position increasingly consequential. To a significant degree, the success or failure of Venezuela’s transition now rests on Washington’s willingness to use its leverage wisely. If U.S. support becomes unconditional, focusing only on short-term stability, it risks empowering another authoritarian cycle under new management.
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Instead, the United States should tie its political and economic backing to measurable institutional reforms, including credible electoral guarantees, judicial independence, anti-corruption mechanisms, and transparency. Reconstruction should not become a substitute for democratization.
The earthquakes shook Venezuela’s ground. What comes next may shake its political future even more.
Imdat Oner is a former Turkish diplomat who served in Caracas, Venezuela, and he currently works as a senior policy analyst at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy.
